am-books Chapter 258: Time’s Up (1)
Chapter 258: Time’s Up (1)
The disciplinary committee member descended the stairs at a terrifying speed as she thrust her rapier toward us.
Swiiish!
At that moment, Han Gyeol-woo who had been silently following us all this time spoke for the first time.
“I’ll handle this.”
She stepped forward and instantly unleashed her magic.
[Ice Wall]
[Triple Layer Wall]
[Triple Layer Ice Wall]
Boom!
Three thick ice walls erupted, blocking the opponent’s path.
The disciplinary committee member responded swiftly.
Flashes of light danced, accompanied by the sharp sound of something slicing through.
Shhk—Slash—Shhk!
One of the ice walls was reduced to pieces in an instant.
At this rate, the remaining walls wouldn’t last more than a few seconds.
But Han Gyeol-woo remained calm, as if she had anticipated this.
Without hesitation, she placed her hand on the ice wall and cast her next spell.
[Shatter]
Cha-ching!
The entire ice structure shattered into hundreds of shards. Each shard was the size of a fingernail as they scattered into the air.
Then, with a snap of her fingers—
[Ice Prison]
The shards in the air instantly converged toward the disciplinary committee member before trapping her in ice.
She was trapped in mere moments, frozen inside a sculpture of jagged shards.
Great skill synergy.
She erected walls of ice, shattered them, and then reassembled the shards to trap her opponent.
It was a seamless flow of magic, as natural as water running downstream.
Crackle.
However, judging by the fissures already spreading across the ice, it didn’t seem like it would hold for long.
Perhaps she was aware of this herself, Han Gyeol-woo murmured softly.
“Go on ahead.”
Her intention was clear. She would stay behind even after the ice shattered and buy everyone time by holding off the disciplinary committee member.
If we fought together, we could probably bring her down, but even that brief amount of time felt too precious to waste.
After all, wasn’t she assigned to our group by the White Magic Club precisely for situations like this?
After exchanging brief glances with Han Gyeol-woo, everyone passed her and went up the stairs.
Still, I’ll take this with me.
[Activated ‘Copy-Skil’.]
[The skill ‘Ice Wall (B)’ has been registered in your slot.]
▷ Copy – Skills [3/3]
1. Thief’s Step (B+)
2. Overheat (C)
3. Ice Wall (B)
Ice Wall was a B-rank spell.
With my current C+-rank core, its mana consumption was too high to be used frequently.
Still, it had its merits, and compared to the near-useless [Shadow Sanctuary] that had been taking up a slot, this was far more practical. So I copied it without hesitation. ṝἁ
As we hurried up the stairs and reached the fourth floor, another formation awaited us.
Just like before, I took the lead while Dang Gyu-young extended her shadow to tie the group together.
Although we entered the formation, there was no visible change to our surroundings. But that itself was the trap.
With both our vision and sense of direction distorted, continuing to walk aimlessly would only lead us to circle in place.
I reminded the group of what to do and gave them a simple instruction.
“Just follow the pull of the rope.”
Then, I sharply adjusted our direction and walked straight toward the wall.
Just as I was about to crash headlong into the wall, the hallway twisted on its own to align perfectly with my path.
In the end, nothing beats experience.
This was the stagnant water sense I had honed through countless encounters with such formations.
All the hard work from back then had paid off now. We were able to break through the formation with ease this time as well.
Meanwhile, I had a thought.
I have a feeling they’ll be waiting right outside...
At the moment, the distorted view made it seem like there was nothing beyond the formation.
However, this area was the perfect spot for the disciplinary committee to lie in wait.
They could observe anyone breaking through the formation and easily launch an ambush.
They had even stationed someone on the staircase earlier. Would they really leave such a prime location unguarded?
Whoosh!
In anticipation of this, I had already set up a Wind Barrier and Choi Han-gil who had also noticed something covered the barrier with additional defensive magic.
Sure enough, the moment we stepped out of the formation—
Prioritize high-value and low-volume items.
Dang Gyu-young darted to one side, grabbed a prohibited item, scurried back, and dropped it neatly into the Cube.
“This one~.”
Then, she dashed to another spot, picked up another item, and slipped it into the Cube.
“And this one too~.”
She ran again to another place again and repeated the process.
Each item was undoubtedly a high-risk prohibited item, yet her demeanor made it feel oddly like she was grocery shopping.
In the middle of filling her metaphorical shopping cart, she suddenly exclaimed,
“Found it.”
She returned holding a thick, hardcover book.
Its dark purple cover was worn, with a few pages torn out.
[The Book of Chaos (A)]
It was the very item requested by the White Magic Club.
When she casually flipped it open, it was clear that only a few pages were missing. This meant that the book had likely been recently acquired.
It was confiscated before they could even use it properly, so it was no wonder they wanted it back.
After carefully tucking the Book of Chaos into a corner of the cube, she resumed her “shopping”.
I should pick out some things for myself too.
Back at the first temporary storage and the black market, I had focused on items that negated elemental penalties while relying on my S-rank Elemental Resistance.
Now, though, there was a new category added to my list.
Poison.
With poison resistance to minimize damage and the Hoodie of the Hidden Master to remove harmful effects, I could handle poisons with relative ease.
Plus, to fully achieve Thousand Poisons Immunity, I needed to consume every poison I could find, whether it was mild or deadly.
So I filled the cube with all kinds of poisonous items. From poison vials, pills, herbs. Anything I could get my hands on.
[Regicide Toxin (B+)]
[Blue Hemlock (C+)]
[Cute Deadly Poison (C)]
[Fruit of Condemnation (B)]
......
I had no idea what someone had been planning with all these before they were confiscated, but the stash turned out to be far more impressive than I had anticipated.
On the other hand, I looked around with the intention of picking up any useful elemental penalty items.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything this time that caught my eye.
I supposed it wasn’t realistic to expect something on the level of the Inferno Fist or the Mysterious Yin Jade Demon Finger every time.
This time, I’ll settle for poison.
Besides, the items currently stored in the cube couldn’t exactly be called mine yet.
Infiltrating the temporary storage was only half the battle; escaping safely was still ahead of us.
When Dang Gyu-young added yet another prohibited item to the cube, I closed the lid and said,
“That’s enough for now.”
“Just one more.”
“It’s already full, and we’re out of time.”
Though she seemed a bit reluctant, she appeared to agree that time wasn’t on our side.
We immediately connected to Jeong Chong-myeong.
“We’ve got everything.”
– The book?
“Of course, we secured it. Now get us out of here.”
– Lock in the coordinates.
“I already did.”
A device resembling a camera tripod had already been set up in one corner of the temporary storage room.
It was a coordinate stabilizer. That was an item that made using spatial magic much easier.
Dang Gyu-young turned to me and asked,
“Do you know how to use this?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Then you go first.”
Since I was holding the Cube of Life, it wasn’t an exaggeration to say I was the key to this operation.
I waited with the coordinate stabilizer clenched tightly in my hand.
Fzzzzzzzzzt.
Moments later, the mana began to ripple more violently, and soon it started to pull me somewhere.
This was the activation of a medium-to-long-distance teleportation spell for a single user.
However, just as my vision was about to shift, a space resembling the night sky opened outside the temporary storage room.
The Dimensional Severance had been undone.
“Ugh!”
Choi Han-gil let out a pained groan and collapsed to the floor.
He hadn’t even been inside for a few minutes, yet his entire body was covered in minor wounds.
Right after that, two third-year disciplinary members trudged out and fixed their gazes on us.
Time’s up.